Industries, such as the automotive industry, rely on devices for baffling, sealing, or reinforcing. Such members typically include an activatable material, such as an expandable material, which may be combined with other components for forming a seal, a baffle, a structural reinforcement or the like in a cavity, such as cavity of an automotive vehicle. U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,784,186; 7,249,415; 5,755,486; 4,901,500; and 4,751,249, and PCT Application No. PCT/US2015/060853 each of which is incorporated by reference, describe exemplary prior art devices for baffling, sealing, or reinforcing.
Injection molding processes provide for simplified customization of vehicle parts without requiring additional manufacturing steps or tools. Two-shot injection molding processes to form a carrier having an expandable material thereon are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,841,647; 7,494,179; and 7,503,620, each of which are incorporated by reference for all purposes. Traditionally, in injection molding processes, an expandable material is applied over a carrier, such that the bottom of the expandable material conforms with the carrier surface and fills in any gaps in the injection mold, such as by having a generally uniform upper surface of the expandable material while the thickness of the expandable material varies due to a profile of the carrier. All of the thickness of the expandable material may not be necessary to sufficiently seal the cavity in which the member is inserted. Additionally, typically expandable adhesive expands generally outwardly, with a tendency to expand perpendicularly, from outer surfaces of the expandable adhesive. This expansion can result in the expandable material expanding away from a surface (i.e., inner wall) of the cavity needing to be sealed or result in inefficient use of the expandable material in sealing the cavity, as only some of the expandable material contacts and adheres to the cavity surface.
Additionally, cavity members into which members for sealing the cavities are inserted typically have varying widths. The varying widths may be attributed to the design of the cavity, tolerance stack-up, and/or manufacturing variability. Devices having expandable material may be too rigid such that they cannot accommodate varying widths of cavity members (i.e., cavity widths smaller than a width of the device). Flexible devices having expandable material thereon, such as that disclosed in US Patent Publication No. 2014/0087126, may not have sufficient rigidity to guide expansion of the expandable material while yet being able to deform and conform to varying widths of cavities.
Thus, there is a need in the industry to provide improved devices which provide for better installation within varying tolerances, more rapid activation of the activatable material, and provide for installation in a variety of cavity configurations. There is a need to guide expansion of activatable material. There is a need to utilize less activatable material and retain the same sealing effectiveness. There is a need to provide for flexible sealing devices to accommodate variance in cavity width.